Mr Sandman, bring me your screams
by BasiliskRules
Summary: "Sleep is vital. Sleep is wonderful. Even *I* sleep." "When?" Clara's expression is one of amused curiosity. He locks away the quite recent bad memories that spring up, and blinks, his face impassive. "Well, when you're not looking." - Or, in which the Doctor tells the truth, from a certain point of view, and we dive into his psyche and basically torture him. Enjoy.
1. Sinnerman

**Not only do I own Doctor Who, I also own the o** **pening quote by Sir Philip Sidney, the Muppets, Sherlock, GOT, Community, Star Trek, mwa ha ha, look on my shows, ye Mighty, and despair.**

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 _OoO_

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 _Come Sleep! O Sleep, the certain knot of peace,_ _  
_ _The baiting-place of wit, the balm of woe,_ _  
_ _The poor man's wealth, the prisoner's release,_ _  
_ _Th' indifferent judge between the high and low._ _  
_ _With shield of proof shield me from out the prease_ _  
_ _Of those fierce darts despair at me doth throw:_ _  
_ _O make in me those civil wars to cease;_ _  
_ _I will good tribute pay, if thou do so._

.

It all starts with a loose panel in a corridor near the TARDIS library.

He could have missed it. He's just turning around the corner, fingers trailing absentmindedly on the nearest wall, when he sees it out of the corner of his eye, stops, and changes direction. It'll only take a minute.

(The Doctor lies; and the Doctor is very good at not thinking about things he doesn't want.)

It's only when he kneels down beside it, instinctively reaches in his jacket pocket and his fingers meet a sudden emptiness, a disconcerting void, that his mind freezes, and his stomach twists and clenches in blind panic, and his hearts and lungs seem to stop and he's unable to draw breath.

He knows what he's supposed to be looking at but nothing registers, his eyes refusing to focus. He can't think. He doesn't want to think.

His hand draws back as if touched by flame–

 _…Ten million ships on fire, there was a war, your own planet, it burned, we lost, everyone lost, they burnt with you, gone, no more, how many children on Gallifrey, not one line, how many, unless there's children crying, someone please, help me, what couldn't you do then, how many, my final victory, such divine hatred, you promised, I have shown you yourself, what couldn't you do then, could you then kill that child? –_

And it all comes rushing back, shock and shame and guilt and horror, a chocking flood that doubles him over; he tries to get up, to run, his trembling feet fail him, and he slides down the wall and remains sitting there, his back leaning against it, unable to scream.

 _What have you done, Doctor?_

He runs his hands over his face, tries to muster his breathing, his heartbeat. He can't tell how long he stays there, silent, unmoving, staring at nothing and listening to the constant mantra drumming in his head, both unwilling and incapable of shutting it out.

 _What have you done, Doctor? What have you done?_

.

The Doctor is also very good at noticing things –although in this case, one doesn't really need to be; and he soon realises he now _has_ to run because he _needs_ to.

He investigates carefully.

Sick, dying, looking for him.

(Why? He knows why.)

.

He visits a dozen uninhabited planets at random and just gazes at the landscape without setting a foot outside the door. He finds the damned bookshop he was looking for and goes on a small shopping spree. He searches the remotest corners of the TARDIS, tidies everything up, and repairs any and every device or control that could possibly malfunction.

(He's not hiding. He's definitely not imagining in how many horrible ways he could, and _is_ very probably _going to_ die. And he's not avoiding Clara –or anyone, really; not at all.)

The blue box drifts aimlessly through the vortex, and every book is boring and any equation he tries to solve turns out wrong. But he keeps going, _doing things_ , in a frantic, exhausting pace that manages to keep him busy.

He practices magic tricks; he looks the part after all, and it turns out he's quite good too.

He finds an electric guitar and decides to dust off his musical skills, until it becomes clear that music doesn't allow him the luxury of _not_ thinking and he abandons the attempt.

.

He could go, of course he could; he _would_ , straight into a trap, his enemy sneering at his compassion. And that would be acceptable.  
But the line is now irreversibly blurred, and he would never be able to tell: is it really compassion that compels him or is it shame?

And he realises that he is horribly scared. So he hides.

.

He denies himself rest, food, sleep.

(His body fails him eventually and he's trapped in a battlefield, the screams echoing in his ears, one particular scream persisting, growing louder, distorted, hateful, until there's nothing human left in it.)

He jolts awake wan and shaking, and he desperately smashes his fist against the console, again and again, relentlessly, until sparks fly and he's bleeding badly and the voice seems to die off.

Then he staggers to the medical bay, ignores the inevitable blood smears on the clean surfaces and the throbbing pain in his hand, and empties very specific cupboards he generally avoids. Worth a try; every try.

He makes absolutely sure that it doesn't fail him again.

 _._

.

He's sitting by his workshop fiddling with wires and scrap pieces of metal, when the bulb of the desk lamp flickers and goes out. The only other light source is the cold glow half the roundels cast, the time rotor with its orange warmth dark and unmoving, and every other light shut off for giving him a headache.

He calmly produces a torch in the almost darkness and switches it on. Nothing. He sighs, and setting it against the table, hits it with a small wrench near the top twice. To his satisfaction, a bright yellow light appears, and he places the torch on a stand near him, going back to his work.

(He's all too aware that his tired brain consciously avoided offering his sonic screwdriver as a quicker solution, that he has long since stopped reaching instinctively for the absent valuable tool.)

"See, I was right. This…dependence is a bit pathetic, honestly. I never needed one either".

.

He whirls around and knocks over the stand in his haste. It crashes to the floor and the yellow light dims a little. He briefly thinks of picking it up but decides not to, and just stands there slightly disoriented, gripping the chair.

"Who's there?" he shouts.

The lower level has been plunged into shadowy darkness and he measures every step carefully until he finds the stairs.

"Hello? I know you're there."

He can see better as he nears the top, but it's not much. His footsteps echo in the silence. The main level is apparently empty but he knows better than to trust his vision.

"Who are you? Speak!"

"Thy evil spirit, Brutus."

He freezes for a second and then turns towards the doors.

Someone is leaning on the wall near them, a colourful umbrella hanging from the nearest railing. A hand reaches out of the shadow and gives it a push, making it sway back and forth.

"All right, Mel would probably say that this was needlessly melodramatic, but really, I couldn't resist."

 _Ah. Your big, blond, Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat-clad self. And yet you feel nothing, no stir of remembrance, no threatening paradox, no change in Time whatsoever._

"You are not real," he whispers.

"Define real", comes the arrogant reply.

"You're not… really there", he concedes.

"Oh, he's finally figured it out! And here was poor me thinking you were smarter than the others". The figure walks nonchalantly towards him but he holds his ground. "Then again, maybe it's not a matter of intelligence. It's not that you don't _need_ your screwdriver…you just don't have it anymore and you're adjusting. You make do".

He simply glares at him. The other man walks past him and pushes a few buttons on the console, glancing up at the screens every now and then.

"But the thing is, the poor dear here is all set to make you a new one. Blueprints and everything". He turns around abruptly and plops himself down on a chair with a flourish of the garish coat. "So the _real_ question is…why do you not _want_ one?"

The other's eyes are now fixed on his own. After a while he looks down and walks away.

"But we both know the answer to that, don't we?"

He paces up and down, avoiding him. Then he decides to check the atmospheric conditions and run a scan for anything unusual. Sentient gases, alien pollen and parasites are never to be ruled out after all.

"You won't find anything there". The grey head bows in angry resignation.

"Aren't you gonna complain about the new look? Or the redecoration? Everyone always does".

"Oh, you want me to complain, Doctor?" Now he's offended. "There are far more important issues to complain about! All my hard work wasted!"

"What are you talking about?"

"The Valeyard! After all I went through trying to stop him!"

A shiver runs down his spine but he forces himself to look at the apparition or whatever it is. "You think I'm the Valeyard".

"Why shouldn't I?" The other gets up and walks around the console, hands in his pockets. "Darkness. Selfishness. Cruelty." He stops right in front of him. "Even if you're not, you are certainly getting there."

"No…no, you can't judge–"

"The Master never said _how_ he came about. That _is_ a way to start, I suppose". He wanders off again and he seems to drag all the light along with him.

 _Breathe, Doctor._

"Somewhere between the twelfth and final incarnation", quotes the voice, now echoing around one of the stairs to the upper level; but he stubbornly refuses to look at him. There's a small pause.

"It fits; no? We both know, Doctor, you're not _really_ the twelfth."

He turns around now, furiously, and the other is no longer there.

.

.

He backs up to the console which is shrouded in total darkness, trying not to panic, taking deep breaths. Every move he makes echoes harshly in the vast, empty space making him jump. He pushes a button blindly and light shines from somewhere in the upper balcony.

His sigh of relief dies abruptly in his chest when he sees a figure standing there, dark against the shining wall and bookcase.

"Well… I did mess up the numbering; that's true."

 _Oh, not him. You sink down into a chair, cross your arms, and gaze up at the man._

He moves a little to the left, leaning on the banister, and now the bandolier and the battered trench coat are clearly visible. His face isn't and somehow that's a relief.

"You know, it's supposed to be just _one_ Ghost of Christmas Past." He does his best to sound dismissive and annoyed. "And I don't think it's actually Christmas in this time zone either. Middle of June, I'd say…Yeah."

"Why?" the man simply asks, blankly, disappointment etched on every line of his body.

He clutches his head in his hands feeling dizzy. "You… _You_ of all people should understand."

"I understand that I didn't have a choice. That you did. That maybe I shouldn't have hoped for great men. Just for a _good_ one".

He closes his eyes desperately, a moan escaping him at the last words. "Davros– we are talking about _Davros_ –"

"A child."

All self-control abandons him and he jumps to his feet. "And how many children were on Gallifrey that day? How many did you kill in the War _before_ that?" he shouts up at him, pointing an accusing hand. "Oh, you didn't have a _choice._ Ah. So you wantme to die because I did, and I made the wrong one. Just _one._ How did _you_ live? How could you, _why did_ _you_ continue after that? Why shouldn't I? This wasn't war, this wasn't mass genocide at least! This isn't someone who had never harmed, never wronged me!" He pauses, panting for breath, shaking. The other one remains still, looking down at him from the upper level.

"You want me to go and surrender to the enemy of all creation, to a ruthless, evil being that deserves suffering, death, _hell_ a hundred times over, just because I made a horrible mistake –and I _know_ how horrible it was, and I wish that I hadn't done it– just because once, _once_ I did something wrong?"

"No. I want you to go because he asks."

The reply stops him dead in his tracks. The dizziness is gone, but now the room, the whole TARDIS seems to be spinning, expanding unnaturally in twisted corridors and nonsensical structures like an M.C. Escher painting, and he is distantly aware of the sound of lights coming back online one by one; near him or far away, the brightness never reaches him.

 _Nightmare, hallucination, madness, metaphysics. Take your pick._

He ignores everything, and stares into the older (but younger) face.

"Before we changed it, before Gallifrey didn't burn… there was a simple truth and I knew it: I did what I had to do. And it wasn't right." He stops as if merely talking about the last days of the Time War physically pains him. It probably does.

"Of course, we did save it in the end. _But I_ _would have done it_. And no matter how pure my motives, no matter how forced my hand…" he trails off, shaking his head. "Do you imagine that afterwards, if _one_ of those children had somehow survived, if one man or woman came to me and said 'I was in the Capitol that last day. How could you?', that I wouldn't be completely at their mercy, that I wouldn't accept _any_ punishment they might have deemed fitting to the crime?"

He chuckles bitterly and now the lined, tired face is illuminated clearly.

"It's amazing what an effect a witness who confronts you, a living victim who asks you to account for what you did, a _righteous_ accuser can have. But there was no one. Oh, the dead _do_ accuse, and they drag you down. But they do so slowly."

He's well aware of the feeling, countless bouts of reckless, borderline suicidal behaviour all fresh in his memory, and he averts his gaze.

 _(Hello, I have sins, would you like me to die for you, why not, what do you mean you care–)_

"You ask me why you should face the one you wronged." His voice is now just deeply sad. "Because he is alive, and he _was_ wronged, no matter who he is, and he has the _right_ to ask you to pay the price. You ask why I –well, not _I_ , really, but still– kept on living. Because there was no one left, no one with the right to order that I _shouldn't_."

There's a moment of silence. Then the light starts fading and his younger self seems to blow away with it.

"Wait…Wait, wait, _wait!_ "

He is ignored, and soon he's alone again in the blue shadows below. He looks –tries to look– around and he can feel his cursed, traitorous pulse accelerating.

 _("Every single creature in the universe has an irrational fear of the dark. But they're wrong. Because it's not irrational.")_

He runs a hand over his face and he almost bursts out laughing. Because somehow, that seems so, so much better an alternative.

.

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 _(to be continued...)_


	2. A continuance of enduring thought

**Thank you all for faving/following/generally giving this a chance, given its unusual nature. Reviews would also be enormously appreciated. Oh, and you can ask any question you may have there too, I will answer. Quote from Lord Byron's _Manfred_.  
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 _oOo_

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 ** _When the moon is on the wave,_** _ **  
**_ _ **And the glow-worm in the grass,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And the meteor on the grave,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And the wisp on the morass;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **When the falling stars are shooting,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And the answer'd owls are hooting,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And the silent leaves are still**_ _ **  
**_ _ **In the shadow of the hill,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Shall my soul be upon thine,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **With a power and with a sign.**_

.

 _Right, Doctor. Focus._

He can see a tunnel-like corridor opening up to his left, light visible at its end. His first instinct is to run towards it but he forces himself to turn his back. He's not playing along.

The console is behind him –and above him, the place where he's standing a good twenty feet lower than it should be.

 _What else is new._

He grabs a fallen blackboard and balances it against a stair that has no reason to be there. He steps precariously on it and reaching out, grasps a shining, twisted railing with the tips of his fingers and pulls himself upwards. The next foothold is a computer panel, the next handhold a bookcase. A book falls off and almost hits him on the face, but he grabs it in time and stuffs it in a bigger-on-the-inside jacket pocket.

He climbs over the bookcase and a loose cable from under the console is hanging just out of reach. He hesitates for a moment and then jumps.

The whole structure collapses and crashes down behind, beneath him, but his fingers now touch metal; he swings a leg sideways and he finally lands on even ground. For a while, he just stays motionless, lying face down on the floor and trying to catch his breath.

"Well, _I_ _do_ in fact _not_ like the redecoration."

He refuses to look up, to get up, to do anything.

"Oh goodness me, what a climb!" He hears footsteps approaching and catches a glimpse of baggy trousers, a black frock coat several sizes too big, and a mop of jet black hair, as the man leans over the edge and looks at the depths below. "Although I suppose the old place doesn't _normally_ look like this. Does it? It'd be terribly inconvenient."

As the other straightens up and turns away, a small, smooth, silvery object falls out of his pocket and rolls on the floor. He sees it's about to go over the edge, so he props himself up on one elbow and snatches it.

It looks like a simple metal rod similar to a penlight; but he knows very well what it really is. He closes his eyes and slumps back down.

"That would be _my_ sonic, thank you."

He hands it over and finally, slowly gets to his feet.

 _(The Cosmic Hobo, the Flautist… River had once jokingly suggested "The Clown Prince of Time".)_

He's leaning on the console, a cape slung over one shoulder, reading his _500 Year Diary._ Right. He used to be so young once, didn't he?

"Funny old world, isn't it?"

"What?" _He_ smiles and snaps the small book shut.

"The Time Lords would have let _you_ off."

He stands very still, his back to the void, the edge of the swirling dark. Somehow the ground below seems much, much further away now. And well, why not?

"Non-interference. At all costs. Oh, they did change their minds once the Daleks became a threat… but back then? And they never even apologised." He sounds quite annoyed. "Even after we'd saved the cosmos…how many times?"

 _He puts the book and the cape away and approaches you, wringing his hands. Shorter, eyes a deeper shade of blue._

"I suppose I should feel grateful I wasn't atomised. Traditional for interventionists. I don't, though. Exile and summary execution will do that to a man. Not to mention how they dealt with Jamie and Zoe…" A fleeting shade of wistfulness passes over his face, then it's cold again as he looks up at him. "Still, isn't it amazing? _I_ am the guilty one here; because I tampered with history. Because I couldn't just stand by, abandon people to their problems. Had _you_ been in that sorry excuse for a trail, you would have done the right thing. For _them_ , that is."

(Suddenly abandoning a helpless child mid-rescue seems a thousand times more despicable an act, no matter what he grows up to be. He promptly decides that looking at his boots is preferable than enduring the gaze of the younger eyes.)

"But perhaps you _do_ agree with them now?"

His head snaps back up again. "I _know_ that it wasn't right."

"Good. That's the truth." The other shifts his jaw and walks slightly to the side to examine a smashed computer panel that hangs over the abyss. "Because there are higher laws than those of the Time Lords, Doctor, and we both know that."

The colourful piece of machinery suddenly emits a loud noise, several sparks, and there's a small explosion of smoke and debris. As if in slow motion, he sees his younger self duck with an alarmed expression and almost fall to the floor. He turns away and steps backwards, covering his face. One foot slips over the edge and he loses his balance, gravity taking hold in full force. A flailing hand manages to catch a piece of railing and he falls sideways with a cry.

"Oh my word!" comes the voice from above amidst several bouts of coughing. He's barely hanging on and the strain on his arm makes him want to use far more rude expressions. As it is, only a grunt of pain escapes his clenched teeth.

"Sorry about that." The younger face appears above him, smiling. "But I'm afraid small accidents are unavoidable when you consider the present state of the TARDIS."

Then his expression turns serious again and he seems to hesitate for a second, as if he doesn't know if he's able or allowed to help. But the moment passes and he crouches down on one knee offering his hand.

"I never regretted it, you know. Everything that I did. Not once, despite how it ended. I knew the risk, I knew the consequences. But I still did it: I travelled, saw the universe, met and helped extraordinary people; saved them even. If I had known that the sentence would be death, _final death_ , not just the death of regeneration, I still would have done my part. And I could have done _more. That_ I regret." As he reaches down, the younger eyes soften for the first time with pity. "Can you say the same?"

He wants to respond but he can't. And he has nothing, there's nothing that he can say. He reaches upwards trying to catch the offered hand, but the railing is smooth and his fingers are slipping and he falls backwards, down, into the dark.

.

.

He closes his eyes and concentrates. Slow down.

He opens them again and he bursts through the blue doors to a perfectly normal TARDIS. He pauses for a second, almost surprised. Even the lighting looks okay.

"Right". He shakes his head and rushes to the controls. Both screens are blank, filled with static. "Come on…"

"That's quite a neat trick you've got there. However, there's no real danger, so it's not going to help you here."

He resists the urge to roll his eyes and kick the console in annoyance. He really wants to, though.

"At the moment, you are having a perfectly survivable fall. And it's all in your mind anyway, so going into your little mind palace is a bit redundant. Defeats the purpose of the whole thing, really."

 _Jean-Paul Charles Aymard, remind me to tell you that you're the greatest imbecile in all of time and space next time I drop by. Yeah, "Hell is other people". Idiot, that's all I'm saying._

He sighs and turns around. His young, blond and beige self is sitting in the middle of the stairs leading to the upper level, his hat by his side, the stick of celery stubbornly decorating his left lapel. A cricket ball is repeatedly thrown in the air to land effortlessly back on his right palm.

"Well…better safe than sorry. I'm surprised _you_ didn't have a fear of heights."

"I was no longer the man I used to be. And neither are you."

"And, uh, you don't think that change is for the better, do you?" It almost isn't a question.

The old blue eyes seem to judge him, and the young, usually sweet and carefree face remains mirthless. "No." He catches the cricket ball and puts it in his pocket. "Sorry."

 _Always the polite one._

"There should have been another way", he quotes. "I believe you'll agree that _this time_ , there _was_."

He can feel his pulse beating like a hammer against his temples and he's beginning to sweat. Say something, anything.

" _You_ let the Master die", he spits at him. "You stood there and did nothing."

The fair head tilts slightly to the side. "I'm not proud of it." He looks down. "He survived, of course, but I had no way to know or expect that. So, no, not proud". He stands up with his hands crossed behind his back. "But I'm pretty sure you understand the difference, Doctor."

 _(You don't say "You didn't kill Davros when you had the chance". Because_ ** _you_** _didn't save him.)_

"Oh? Well, what would you have done?" he asks instead, approaching him. He's aware of the desperation that's seeping into his tone.

The younger man picks up his hat and descends the last steps until they're face to face. Barely breaking eye contact, he takes a coin out of his pocket and flips it. He catches it easily in the air, and turning away, opens his hands.

 _If only it were that easy._

He glances at him over his shoulder and his look is grave, even mournful. But the coin goes back into his pocket and he neither shows nor answers him.

 _You don't bother asking him again, and instead, as he heads to the doors, you close your eyes and let go._

 _._

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 _(to be continued)_


	3. The King of Infinite Space

**There is some light -and very symbolic- gore here. Rated accordingly just in case.** ** **Continuing quote from Lord Byron's _Manfred_.****

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 _OoO_

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 ** _Though thy slumber may be deep,_** _ **  
**_ _ **Yet thy spirit shall not sleep;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **There are shades which will not vanish,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **There are thoughts thou canst not banish;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **By a power to thee unknown,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Thou canst never be alone;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Thou art wrapt as with a shroud,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Thou art gather'd in a cloud;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And forever shalt thou dwell**_ _ **  
**_ _ **In the spirit of this spell.**_

.

He barely has enough time to open his eyes before he crashes onto a huge pile of books. They break his fall all right, better than metal would, certainly, but he still lets out a cry of pain.

He gets up carefully. No broken bones. Good.

Suddenly, the silence is shattered by a cry of agony. He spins around and nearly falls off the small hill. He listens carefully but it's not repeated. Instead it's replaced by a quiet, gasping, horrible sound of some creature suffering a horrific death.

He clambers down clumsily in the darkness, heading towards the sound, fear gripping his hearts. Books slip and fall under his feet, and he loses his balance several times before he reaches solid ground. In front of him, there's a wall engraved with Gallifreyan symbols which emit a faint glow.

Encouraged by the slight increase of light, he places his right hand on the metal and quickens his pace. There seems to be nothing straight ahead, but after a while the wall veers sharply to the right. He hesitates, then turns around the corner, and the light blinds him.

It takes several seconds for his vision to adjust even after he opens and uncovers his eyes. And then he can see what's in front of him and he reels back, averting them again.

The light is emanating from the large room he has entered itself. Diamond-like crystals, bright blue and golden-orange, hang from above, jut out of the walls at random, lie broken on the floor, still glittering. They are poking out of the ground too, in sharp towering spirals and clusters like small trees of glass.

A white-haired man is slowly making his way across the uneven floor, crawling and leaving a trail of blood behind him. Every inch of his body seems to have been pierced by the shimmering material. At some points it's difficult to tell where his limbs end and the room begins. When he dares to look again, he sees that he's struggling to move over a particularly vicious-looking cluster that's digging into him. A shard of crystal has impaled his shoulder cleanly through and is sticking out like a grotesque broken wing, dripping crimson onto his back.

He wants to run away, oh, how he _wants to_ ; but he approaches carefully, stepping over the blood-stained stones. With no small amount of shock and horror, he recognises his third self.

Clothes badly burned and torn, large pieces of velvet and cotton lying shredded in his path. He can't decide if the face is unrecognisable because of a large, bleeding cut that runs across it or the grimace of suffering that distorts his features.

As if he senses his presence, the one on the ground opens his eyes and looks at him through a haze of pain. His hand presses down for support and a blue, spike-like shard runs it through. His head is thrown back, mouth open in a silent scream.

Feeling sick, he rushes to the other's side and slowly tries to move him to a place on the ground that might cause him less pain. He can't, he doesn't want to imagine why this is happening. He doesn't remember having to suffer such a thing in all his lives.

The blood-soaked body is pulled off, out of the sharp cluster with a sickening sound. It's like he's a part of the room itself. Broken pieces still jut out of him in so many places that he settles for turning the man on his side, cradling his head and settling his upper body on a part of the floor where the crystals seem fairly blunt. The half-open eyes seem aware and are looking intently at him.

"Thank you". It's a barely audible whisper.

"What-what are you doing?"

"The right thing… I made a choice… Doctor."

And he remembers the end of that life, the cave, the burning radiation, the sickness and pain that forced him to his knees half a dozen times before he managed to reach the TARDIS.

"What… are _you_ … doing?

 _("I had to face my fear ... that was more important than just going on living...")_

"You never met Davros", he whispers, unable to look at him.

"I was lucky in that regard." He stops, every word a huge effort. "But maybe… if it was cause for so much suffering… I should n-never have gotten the TARDIS… working again."

"No. No, come on, you fought tooth and claw for that, you can't say that–"

"So much death… so many wrong judgments…" The eyes close as if in deep thought, but there's such exhaustion on the bleeding face that he's afraid momentarily the man will die right there. "But no, I'm not saying it… I never would… made my choice…d-did what I had to". A small rivulet of blood trickles out of his mouth. "Go… you have a choice too."

The last words are spoken in a louder and firmer, though no less pained voice. Carefully, he sets him down and he sees a knee gaining purchase, a hand reaching out feebly to continue his struggle.

"Because… free will is not an illusion after all."

Inch by inch he continues and he doesn't look back.

 _You stay still, as if frozen on the spot for several long moments. It takes you a while to notice there's a tunnel-like opening, pitch black against the cruel light, in one of the walls._

Slowly, he gets up, his face carefully arranged into an apathetic, unreadable mask, and walks into the darkness once more.

.

.

The passageway is narrow and low-ceilinged and he needs to double up to move through it. The floor is mercifully smooth so he doesn't have to worry about tripping as he makes his way half blind. The usual hum of the TARDIS is heard through the walls once or twice. The only other sound is his footsteps and his tired breath.

There's a part where the ceiling is so low he worries he'll get stuck, and has to go on half-crawling. But after that the corridor seems to expand, and he soon finds himself able to stand up and walk properly again. It also becomes wider, and he wistfully thinks that if a small, brunette human was with him, they could have walked, run side by side without any difficulty at all.

(A less pleasing change is the lighting, which seems to gradually become warmer and brighter. Right. Any minute now.)

He keeps walking towards what he thinks looks like a distant exit, quickening his pace.

And the other slowly materialises, neither ghost nor truly flesh, somehow less substantial than he is but not transparent, in a small alcove of the wall a few feet in front of him and a little to his left. Like light becoming solid, he's there, from the brown sticky-uppy hair to the worn, battered, cream white sneakers.

The light brown overcoat sweeps the blotted out stars of his Converse, and flaps and billows faintly in a wind that isn't there.

 _You stop. He's standing with his hands in the pockets of his pinstriped suit, tall and skinny, head tilted slightly to the side. But he's not the Oncoming Storm, the fire and ice and rage that burns others and himself, he's not the furious god that you expect. The large, dark brown eyes that gaze at you look human, and only reflect a deep, somewhat surprised sorrow._

He glares defiantly back at the handsome face and keeps going.

"With Gallifrey _saved_ …how could you do it?"

He stops abruptly; but he refuses to look back at the sad, devastated face, he refuses to look back at this younger, emotional one and his deep, _human_ incomprehension and pain, he can't bear to look into the tearful eyes that longed for home and died alone and afraid without seeing it once, guilty, unknowing.

 _(The eyes that never will, now, after what you did; not even through your own.)_

"As you would have said… I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

There's no reply. He hangs his head.

"How did he survive?"

 _("Davros? Come with me. I promise I can save you.")_

"I don't know". And he can just imagine the shrug of the thin shoulders, the left eyebrow arching slightly. There's a beat of silence and a sigh, and the voice is a touch harder now. "How indeed".

 _("You said I could survive. You said you'd help me. Help me!")_

He can feel the eyes that aren't really there drilling holes into his back. He'd much rather prefer a real drill, honestly. He still doesn't look at him, he stares straight ahead with a manic, desperate intensity.

"Have you told her? Have you told anyone?" A bitter laugh is heard. "The Master would be impressed, no doubt."

A sudden madness seizes him and he breaks into a run towards the distant natural light somewhere at the end of the corridor, teeth clenched, his blood pounding in his ears. _1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4_ –

 _(_ – _The man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame.)_

 _._

* * *

 _(to be continued...)_


	4. Guilty creatures sitting at a play

**People, I am disappoint. Are you not entertained?! Continuing quote from Lord Byron's _Manfred._**

* * *

 _oOo_

* * *

 ** _Though thou seest me not pass by,_** _ **  
**_ _ **Thou shalt feel me with thine eye**_ _ **  
**_ _ **As a thing that, though unseen,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Must be near thee, and hath been;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And when in that secret dread**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Thou hast turn'd around thy head,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Thou shalt marvel I am not**_ _ **  
**_ _ **As thy shadow on the spot,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And the power which thou dost feel**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Shall be what thou must conceal.**_

.

He comes to a halt, panting, a few feet from the exit. There's no door and he can see a bare, blank room, with a few cold, neon lamps and pieces of machinery scattered across the floor. A light like that of a spotlight is shinning at something out of his field of vision.

There's a sudden loud bang, hollow, the sound of metal violently hitting metal, and he jumps.

There are more ominous metallic, clanging noises, some quieter than the first, but always harsh. He takes a few steps back without realising it. A steady scraping, grinding noise starts coming from the room, and he's suddenly very reluctant to go inside.

He looks around and he notices a small door, hardly larger than that of a broom cupboard, a little to his right. _Bigger on the inside_ , he thinks, and glancing back at the room in front of him, opens it, squeezes himself through, and closes it behind him. The sounds from the room are mostly muffled and he turns around.

It is indeed bigger on the inside, an empty, drab grey place with echoes of green in the long shadows.

"Nice of you to drop by".

Well, maybe not so empty after all.

 _You don't approach him. A box-like protrusion emerges from the wall near you, about a foot from the floor, and you sit uncomfortably on it, hands clasped together in front of you. You peer into one dark corner and take in the man sitting in a completely out of place plush armchair. He's leaning forward, smiling, a Panama hat balancing on one knee. The pullover with the red question marks he wears under the off-white jacket is unmistakable._

He almost expects a table with a chessboard to be symbolically placed by his side, but there isn't one.

"Oh, I prefer other games now; hopscotch, for instance." He is no longer smiling. "But would you like me to get one? I am the schemer after all. The manipulator. The ruthless one".

The way he rolls the last "R" seems to fill the ensuing pause with irony.

"I'd say destroying Skaro, for example, falls under 'ruthless', pretty much, yes".

(He's on shaky ground, he doesn't want to go there. He knows where it will lead. But if he can convince _just one_ of them not to condemn him, all this might just be worth it.)

The other's face is framed in shadow, his expression difficult to read.

"Would you say it was morally wrong?"

"No", he admits with a sigh.

"Of course not. It just seems… too much; and was a bit sudden, wasn't it?"

 _(He too is slightly Scottish, you had forgotten that)_

"Speaking of Skaro, _this_ was a bit sudden too–"

"Yes, yes, yes, and it was too much, and morally wrong, and I shouldn't have done it, right?" He gets up and starts pacing up and down again, trying to keep the trembling out of his voice.  
 _(Fight. Fight back)._  
"Spare me, 'Ka Faraq Gatri', 'Bringer of Darkness', 'Destroyer of Worlds'. It's all well and good when you want to sound impressive, to scare away the monster aiming a gun at your face or at the Earth. But certain actions that _you_ did, plans that _you_ started, awarded me those names, you know."

"You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies", he quotes.

"Yes. And keep fighting these enemies too long–"

"And 'the abyss gazes also', I know." The voice is loud, angry and relentless now. "But if you are trying to put the blame on me, it seems it _kept_ gazing, Doctor, long after I had stopped, long after I had recoiled".

He comes to a halt and looks away at the outburst, but the other calms down unnaturally fast and his face splits into a half-smile once more.

"Let's be what you want to believe I was not. Straightforward, just, fair. What did I do?"

He's staring fixedly at the door, wishing he hadn't come in after all. "You destroyed Skaro."

"Yes. And what did _you_ do?"

"You know", he growls. It feels as if his insides are slowly turning into ice.

"Hm… Yes, of course, quite similar situations, aren't they?" he asks pleasantly, as if he really has to think about it. "Tricking a mass murderer to save the universe from a horrific weapon; running away from a lost, still innocent ten-year-old, begging for help in the middle of a war zone. Who knows what will become of him after that. Oh wait; we actually _do,_ don't we."

(An endless tide of purposeful, conquering hate, hate for all life, death and destruction reigning supreme, always death, the creation in the image of the creator. Death that might have been averted).

"And what a surprise, he's a little bit miffed when he finally figures it out. I hardly think a nice apology card and a cake will manage to change his disposition. Well, you never know…"

He collapses back down on his makeshift seat, looking away.

"I fully intended to kill him, you know."

 _("Have pity on me!"_ _  
_ _"I have pity_ ** _for_** _you! Goodbye Davros. It hasn't been pleasant.")_

At the memory, a choking sensation climbs up your chest as it never has before; because now it's all on you, you started it all, you never had the right to do such a thing after that, _you can't leave me! You promised. You said I had a chance –_

"I had though the universe had had just about enough of him. I regretted that it didn't work." The other laughs bitterly. "The one time I did not show him mercy… and he still survived. But 'survival is just a choice', isn't it?"

(He buries his face in his hands, tasting bile in his throat. Did he do that too? Is there anything, _anything_ in all this that isn't his fault?)

"He decided he was going to live. And he lived. He _always_ lived, and the Daleks lived… and everyone else died."

 _You glance at him through reddened, blurry eyes; he's gazing at the floor, sorrow plain on his face. Then with a tremendous effort, you get up, force open the door –you ignore the disturbing sounds which you hid from earlier that instantly attack your ears– and stagger out, to the corridor, towards the room without a door._

.

.

The instant he steps out, there is a final, loud, clanging noise and then silence. Well, not quite. He can hear footsteps inside the room, a laboured breathing. His own breath is dying in his throat and his head is burning and his stomach is wracked with icy waves of pain, but he clenches a fist and takes a determined step forward.

He trips over something and almost falls flat on his face. A knee and a hand break his fall and the worst is avoided. He's trying to get up, perplexed and annoyed, when he notices the impossibly long, twisting, multi-coloured scarf. _Oh._

He had been unable to pay the slightest attention to anything except the room before him. (It's becoming increasingly difficult to pay attention to things in general, really). But now changed shapes and colours, images that had gone right over his head, seem to slowly settle down behind his eyes. Slowly, reluctantly, he turns around, still half kneeling on the floor.

 _He's there, of course he is. Behind you, a little to your left. At some point –you can't pinpoint exactly where– the corridor gradually changes into a familiar, wider, dark grey space. He's not supposed to be alone, but there he stands, tall and thin and a mass of curls, his face intense and concentrated to the point of anguish, bent over the two wires. He's holding the blasted, infernal wires and oh, how you hate him. Passionate and irrational and completely unfair, it rises and burns your throat. Because couldn't he, damn him, couldn't he have chosen a different metaphor?_

'If someone who knew the future', indeed.

He gets up, pushing the end of the scarf carefully out of the way. The other doesn't seem to notice. _He_ does notice however, that his past self's hands are trembling slightly.

 _And ashamed, filled with pity, you turn away, you head to the room, because he shouldn't have had to feel like this, because he and all the others shouldn't have had to suffer for it after all that he managed to do, because how could he have known?_

"So you think I had the right, after all?"

He stops and turns to the man. The brown head is still lowered, but he could swear that he felt the huge, pale eyes noticing his movement. Come on; it couldn't be that easy, could it?

"I don't know."

(His voice makes a sharp contrast to the usually imposing, wise tone of his predecessor; as deep as his, but hoarse and tired.)

From the room comes the sudden sound of something heavy crashing to the floor and he flinches. Just leave him be, carry on. But it bursts out of his lips, lost, breathless and desperate.

"Did _–_ Did I?"

The other one raises his head now and looks at him seriously under the wild curls, as if to examine every inch of that distant, wretched future which has a void filling its lungs.

"What? Have the right? To do what you did?" The somber aloofness now seems to hide a vicious, mirthless smile, a distorted echo of his ever-present manic grin. And maybe just a hint of contempt. "I don't know, Doctor."

The last word is emphasised in a way that almost makes the title an insult. The younger man suppresses a sigh and forces his gaze back to the wires, his face grave with quiet, righteous anger.

"But you certainly had a _duty_."

He doesn't speak or move again.

 _You can hear him breathing though, and isn't it funny, you think as you walk like a robot, pale as a corpse, towards the room, isn't it funny that the dead one can do it, and the living one cannot?_

 _._

* * *

 _(to be continued...)_


	5. A penny for the Old Guy

**Continuing quote from Byron's** _**Manfred.  
**_

* * *

 _OoO_

* * *

 _ **And a magic voice and verse**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Hath baptized thee with a curse;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And a spirit of the air**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Hath begirt thee with a snare;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **In the wind there is a voice**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Shall forbid thee to rejoice;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And to thee shall Night deny**_ _ **  
**_ _ **All the quiet of her sky;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And the day shall have a sun,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Which shall make thee wish it done.**_

.

It's like he has entered the stage of a particularly troublesome, absurdist theatre production.

Neon lights shine dimly from a high-tech, futuristic wall in the back and the floor is littered with dark shapes he can't quite make out. Some of them look like tools and he walks carefully, trying to avoid another fall. Others tower over him. A warmer, yellow light shines from above like a spotlight at something behind a wooden, dilapidated bookcase which is half covered with a sheet. Another wall, straight ahead of him, is a stunning imitation of the design of his TARDIS's first console room, white and minimalist and filled with roundels.

Near a corner with a similar structure, a small form is crouching on the floor beside a chair and an elegant sculpture, head leaning on a roundel as if sleeping. Too small for any of his previous selves. Or any adult, really.

 _A terrible suspicion runs through you, please not him, please not him, it can't be him–_

He takes a step backwards and bumps onto something. He turns and he's face to face with a Dalek eyestalk.

Two thousand years of horrible experience _(liar, you liar, you can't really remember, can you)_ kick in and he freezes on the spot, his mind racing, ready to duck, ready to reach for a weapon that isn't there, there's nothing, he's at point-blank range, completely defenceless, ready to hear the harsh, staccato, electronic scream, to perhaps see the blinding, blue-white flash of the death-ray, _instant death if you're lucky, but they often dial their guns down to the lowest possible setting that would kill, you'll die slow, you'll die in agony, you hope like hell its fear of you is greater than its hate–_

It all runs through his head in a millisecond and he has half-raised a useless arm defensively, completely out of reflex, when he notices that the blue light of the eyepiece is dimmer than it should be. He steps to the side quickly and it doesn't follow his movement. And as his own vision adjusts, he sees the large crack across its midsection, a gaping hole where the gunstick should be. Most of the base is missing, the rest sitting on a tall, aluminium crate.

"Don't worry, it's been neutralised".

He turns around just in time to see a sledgehammer coming down on a vaguely Dalek-like shape, standing just where the spotlight is shining. There's a small explosion and a figure wearing a black leather jacket moves casually forward to examine the smoking wreck, the tool dragging behind him. He kneels down, the buzz of a sonic screwdriver is heard, and after a while a hand withdraws holding the mangled remains of the mutant inside.

His ninth self turns his back on the casing and throws the dripping mass of tentacles on the floor, an expression of great disgust plain on his face.

"This one too. Don't try this with a normal sledgehammer though, it won't work".

He wipes his hands and sits heavily on a chair beside the bookcase, leaning an elbow on the workbench in front of it.

 _You look around carefully and you realise that most of the dark shapes are bits of destroyed Daleks. None of the noise seems to disturb the boy that is leaning against the wall of the TARDIS, quite still. You tear your gaze away and take a few steps towards_ ** _him_** _._

"Um, really not my business, but… what are you doing?"

"Let's call it damage control, Doctor", he smiles, but it's clear it takes effort on his part. In front of him, lies a dismantled Dalek casing. He picks up a piece, holds it up to the light, and laughs that unnerving laugh that has no real joy or warmth in it. "Just like a human tank, isn't it? Except what's inside is trapped, really. And if you think about it, it didn't ask to be there in the first place. Or to kill".

(Was that pity in his voice? He looks so forlorn without a pink-and-yellow human by his side.)

"Of course, you never have the time to think about it. Too busy trying to hit the eyestalk so that it won't destroy your planet. Still," he looks at the older man, "it's a thought."

(What would _he_ have done? What would he, especially he, have done if he had found himself on that battlefield? _What about you, Doctor? What the hell are_ ** _you_** _changing into?)_

He walks towards him and leans heavily on the table, as far away from the other man as he can. "I'm _sorry_ that I abandoned Davros to die", he says bluntly. "Really. I trully am".

"No you're not. You didn't".

 _He ignores your puzzled expression, picks up a gunstick from the mess of parts in front of him, and casually points it at your face. You can't suppress a slight flinch, but you refuse the urge to tell him to aim it somewhere else, and stare him down. You won't look away._

"You _didn't_ abandon him to die; he lived, you knew he lived. You abandoned him to become the one he became".

(His face drains of what little colour it had left and he does look away.)

"Oh, doesn't it make you wonder?" His voice is aggressively cheerful. "Why don't the Daleks have eyes? _Real_ eyes? Why shouldn't they? This doesn't look remotely like the real thing, nice blue, yes, but still", he continues, pointing at a discarded eyestalk with the gun. "Why are they _created_ without _hands_?" He waves his own free hand in the air, clenching and unclenching his fingers. "It's certainly not practical for most tasks; the _Cybermen do_ have them and use them quite efficiently. And here we have the 'supreme life-form' running around with a sink plunger. It doesn't make much sense". He puts down the gun.

"Unless of course the designer, _the maker_ , _still_ finds them scary for some reason." Real eyes manage to lock onto real eyes and he shrugs. "Perhaps subconsciously".

Every bit of cheerfulness, no matter how forced, is gone from his face, his voice.

"How scared must you be to seal every one of your own kind inside a tank?"

 _Your hands are clenched fists on the table, knuckles white. You lean on them to the point of pain; your legs are not to be trusted. He crosses his arms and looks up at you. The façade is slipping, you can see the sorrow and anger he always hid beneath._

"In many respects, things would have been better if you had _actually killed_ him." He looks down again, to fiddle with a cracked luminosity discharger. "Or you could have saved him; shown a little bit of mercy, saved a soul. And maybe… maybe _prevented_ everything. All of it."

(He abruptly straightens himself and rubs his numbing fingers. Hollow. He wants to stop thinking, he wants everything to stop, please stop.)

Then he remembers the child and he turns around. He hesitates for a second, not knowing what to do –he's ridiculously slow these days– not wanting to ask. And he heads towards the small, hunched form, as if hypnotised, without saying a word.

"Davros made the Daleks", calls the voice behind him. "But who made Davros?"

 _(It doesn't stop you. But what you hear in the tone, the inflection, the tranquil fury that's seeping into the words, is an echo of years long gone:_

 _"Then what should I do?"_ _  
_ _"All right, then. If you want orders, follow this one. Kill yourself.")_

And it's frankly disturbing how appealing the idea is beginning to sound, even for him.

.

* * *

 _(to be continued...)_


	6. In the twilight kingdom

**In which I am once again disappoint. *Sigh* Oh, well.** **Continuing quote from Lord Byron's** _ **Manfred.**_

* * *

 _oOo_

* * *

 _ **From thy false tears I did distil**_ _ **  
**_ _ **An essence which hath strength to kill;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **From thy own heart I then did wring**_ _ **  
**_ _ **The black blood in its blackest spring;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **From thy own smile I snatch'd the snake,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **For there it coil'd as in a brake;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **From thy own lip I drew the charm**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Which gave all these their chiefest harm;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **In proving every poison known,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **I found the strongest was thine own.**_

.

 _The boy is not Davros. It's you. That age when you cried, when you were afraid of the monsters under the bed, of the dark, of the future ahead of you. And yet here you are, your rest unburdened, free from nightmares._

(He kneels beside the child and he's briefly, irrationally envious of the peace he can see on the young face.)

 _Because someone comforted you. Someone told you it was okay to be afraid. Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger._

"Fear makes companions of us all."

He could have sworn the chair by the hat-stand wasn't occupied. Well, maybe it wasn't. Now it is.

Under expressive eyebrows and shoulder length, greyish-white hair combed neatly back, the piercing blue eyes of his first self are open and gazing thoughtfully at the floor in front of him, at the past and the future.

"So it does," he answers.

"Hm." The other one leans forward and has to stop a carved wooden cane from clattering to the floor. He puts it aside with a sound of annoyance and stands up easily. He walks over to the sleeping boy and taking off his opera cape, drapes it over his younger self. "Good gracious, I'll catch my death", he grumbles. Then he glances quickly at the older version and walks back to his chair.

 _He doesn't sit down though. He sighs and holds onto his lapels and gazes at the child. You don't get up, even though your feet and lower legs are getting numb. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of something metallic dropping to the floor is heard. The other is still there; but you didn't want, you didn't dare look back. Typical._

"Amazing, isn't it? How easy it is to change the life of a child. Sometimes, one day is all it takes. Just one."

He slumps against the wall too. Something is crumbling inside his chest. He must not be that strong or wise after all, because his fear isn't making him remotely kind. He just feels empty.

 _You are accountable for what you may have created._

Centuries upon centuries of battling mad scientists, and suddenly, _you_ are Frankenstein.

He's far too miserable to appreciate the irony.

Something is happening to the room. Everything shakes and goes in and out of focus for a few seconds, like a glitch in a broken television set. He can see his own TARDIS, his own console room just for a moment. Is she crashing somewhere? Again? He looks from the child to the old man, both completely undisturbed and unnaturally still, and though he doesn't have the energy, he absurdly wants to laugh.

 _("It's okay. This is just a dream. Just lie back again. Just lie back on the bed. It will all be okay if you just lie down and go to sleep. Just do that for me. Just sleep. Listen.")_

Dreams within dreams within dreams, Clara. Within nightmares within Dante's Inferno. Have I taught you nothing? Well, I'll admit this must be rare. It'll never happen to you. If it does, I'm taking you to see Robin Hood again and buying enough ice-cream to last all the Merry Men for a year. Swear on it.

 _ **Clara.**_

And something is trying to crush his skull as he sits there, the pressure tightening, tightening, and it has nothing to do with whatever is happening around him. Because, oh God, what, _how_ can he tell her?

Everything is fading around him, it's like he's blinking too fast, too much. The time-rotor is there, it ends in three rotating silver rings and the Gallifreyan symbols fly before his eyes in a blur, searing his irises.

Clara would forgive him.

Clara would forgive him if he told her, she would, he's absolutely sure of it; and somehow, that only makes it worse.

The boy is not there anymore and he sees his adult first self turning to leave.

"Susan." He blurts it out suddenly at the other one, something makes him, he doesn't know what it is.

 _He stops and you can see him hesitate. He turns and looks at you over his shoulder._ _  
_  
 _ **Would she understand?**_ _ **  
**_  
 _You don't speak the words aloud, but you're sure he somehow knows what you are asking._

He doesn't answer. He walks away and he seems to dissolve into thin air as everything comes crashing down.

 _You don't move. The floor lurches violently under you and the shadows lengthen like reaching hands. You think of Susan and it takes conscious effort to close your eyes._

.

.

It feels as if a wave is rushing over him. There is no sound. He endures it, curled in on himself. Behind his eyes, colours waver and flash wildly. He can feel through no sense he can explain the TARDIS reassembling around him. Finally, her rhythmic hum breaks the silence.

The stairs are digging uncomfortably into his back.

He's sprawled on the stairs leading to the upper level. However, there is no upper level.

Almost everywhere he looks he sees swirling dark, rushing to form into shapes as soon as his gaze falls on what should be there. It's like his concentrating on them urges everything into existence. There's the lower level, a bookcase between two bright roundels, a computer terminal, the doors, a spare jacket, the chalkboard, the narrow corridor leading to the swimming pool, all bathed in twilight.

He gets up, and starts walking around the still-forming place in (probably) too careless a manner. What danger? His mind wanders and he catches himself trying to imagine, on a whim, what a Weeping Angel would do in such a situation.

A smile tugs at the corners of his mouth and drowns inside his exhaustion and misery before it reaches his eyes. The banister near one of the seats seems tangible enough and he leans against it with a sigh, heavily, hanging his head.

Something crashes to the floor behind him and his head snaps back up again. A dull thud of flesh and bone. Living.

(Quick, painful, rattling breaths, broken by inarticulate moans. Not for long.)

He stumbles in his haste, regains his footing, and runs around the console. Don't panic. You're a Doctor.

So is he.

 _A spasm shakes his whole upper body and a bloodied hand flails around ineffectually, trying to grasp your ankle. You drop to your knees beside him and don't know what to do._

The brown hair, drenched with sweat and blood, is long and wavy, the pale, contorted face looks barely thirty-five. He's wearing the Victorian velvet frockcoat ensemble, utterly ruined but recognisable. He might just have walked through Grace's door.

 _You know he looked different, he was different, he was much, much older when he died; yet here he is, breathing his last, suffering as if the spaceship crashed on Karn just a minute ago._

"No _–_ no, don't… _"_ A strangled cry of agony is the only response. "It's okay… it's okay", he lies miserably, and tries to hold him as he's thrashing and coughing, push the cravat away to take his pulse.

 _But his eyes find your face and a hand rises with great effort. His trembling fingers rest against your temple, your cheek, and you feel everything he feels, the memories pour out of him like poison, filling your mind as your own thoughts mingle with his._

Images, sounds, flashes of bright light.

All timelines are there in his head, conflicting, all horrible. He wanders the Earth, he waits, not knowing who he is. Friends and allies die and he can't stop it, he battles enough paradoxes as it is. He is stabbed. Rassilon tricks him and anti-time pours into the universe, possesses him, runs out of his eyes. Zagreus sits inside your head. Everything is a white void. The Daleks conquer the Earth, and surely this is enough now; enough.

( _"Cut my throat."_ _  
_ _"I can't."_ _  
_ _"I can't do it myself, it needs precision. Right across the vocal cords."_ )

Screaming. Not just his own.

He loses one of his hearts. Davros captures him and that part is not clear, there's just blissful, blissful insanity. The guilt rises and rises. Why does _he_ get to live?

 _You're drowning, you need to leave. But he doesn't break contact. You don't think he can._

He is tortured so horribly, he doesn't even remember why or who did it any more. Light City's drones rumble ominously. Christ recrucified, he's trying to help the Master, two murdered humans at his feet, the world seconds from ending. Give me your hand.

(Davros is sick. He's dying. He has asked to see you.)

 _Is it the memories or your own conscience that's clogging you down?_

The Time War starts and he desperately tries to mend the wounds while they hate him. He pleads with his own people, rages against them; leave that planet in peace. Because we are not Daleks.

 _("Who can tell the difference any more?")_

I see beauty. I see divinity. I see hatred.

 _You grab his wrist and try to break the connection and it's like trying to pry a white-hot iron from inside your skull. Your heartbeat goes out of control as if trying to match his._

Suicide. It was suicide. Death by despair. Physician, heal thyself.

 _"…Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm–"_

He stares down at the desolate, ashen face and he can't breathe. It's just a powerless hiss of air through his clenched teeth while his mind is burning.

 _("I help where I can. I will not fight."_ _  
_ _"Because you are the good man, as you call yourself?"_ _  
_ _"I call myself the Doctor."_ _  
_ _"It's the same thing in your mind."_ _  
_ _"I'd like to think so.")_

He twists violently and manages to tear his face away with a scream.

 _You're still holding his wrist and you don't care if you are hurting him, you can't help it if you are. Your own arm is shaking from shoulder to fingertips. But his hand relaxes in your grip and when an index finger brushes lightly, accidentally against your cheek, you can only feel him letting go._

"No–"

The other's chest is barely rising any more, and a single tear runs down his face, a clear track that soon mingles with the blood and the grime. His lips are moving soundlessly and he bends down to listen, releasing his hand. It grasps his jacket feebly, and when he sits back up again, unable to make out a word, it thuds to the floor. There's nothing to be done.

Blue locks on blue, but there's no restoring fire this time, no cup of pain, and after a few moments the younger, kinder eyes seem to glaze over, their gaze losing focus, becoming fixed and empty.

 _He moves no more, and for a while, you continue to stare into the blank eyes, windows to a soul no longer there, something blocking your throat, your chest. Then you close them carefully and stagger to your feet. The TARDIS is now exactly as it should be, but everything seems to have a sharp, almost painful edge to it. You rub your temples and collapse on the nearest seat. You sit as still as the body on the floor, equally pale and cold, feeling a million times heavier and hollower. You listen to the quiet sounds of the ship and you stare at him with dull, bloodshot eyes. You don't think. There is no time. At some point you blink and he just stops being there._

 _._

* * *

 _(to be concluded...)_


	7. The Judgment of the Dead

**You are lucky. I'll be busy, so you get two chapters today. Enjoy. Continuing quote from Lord Byron's _Manfred._  
**

* * *

 _oOo_

* * *

 _ **By thy cold breast and serpent smile,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **By thy unfathom'd gulfs of guile,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **By that most seeming virtuous eye,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **By thy shut soul's hypocrisy;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **By the perfection of thine art**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Which pass'd for human thine own heart;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **By thy delight in others' pain,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And by thy brotherhood of Cain,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **I call upon thee! and compel**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Thyself to be thy proper Hell!**_

.

The Cloister Bell begins to sound.

He springs to his feet and darts to the console, forcing his swimming head to focus. A quick scan reveals that the TARDIS is about to collide with a huge moon entirely covered in lava. Right. No matter what planes of madness his soul is merrily skipping through at the moment, he probably _still_ is _somewhere_ in the known universe, isn't he?

His hand is at the lever that will take him far away from any danger but he suddenly changes his mind. Let the bloody bell toll for as long as it likes. He makes a few swift calculations, pushes a few buttons, fiddles with several switches, and there: a nice, stable orbit.

(Of course, she's not satisfied, still too close to a fiery death, and makes her irritation known by continuing the ominous ringing noise. As if he needed one more reason to cause him a splitting headache.)

He walks to the doors and opens them wide. Though the landscape far beneath looks very close to traditional depictions of Hell, it still retains a strange kind of beauty; and he stands there gazing at it for far longer than he had expected to.

 _You really need to lay off Gothic Fiction and the British Romantics. Besides, Byron's an absolutely lousy shot with the darts, you think as you close the doors. A tired, tired part of your brain notices that you avoid a specific spot as you walk around aimlessly. There's no trace of your eighth self ever being there, but you still somehow expect to see phantom blood staining the floor. Look anywhere else._

The lighting is normal now, everything is normal, and when he notices a book carelessly lying on a seat, he even thinks of sitting down and reading.

(The Cloister Bell is still ringing, a steady rhythm like a human heartbeat.)

 _Of course not. Eleven down, one to go. Come on, what are you, new?_

So he sets the book aside instead, and sinks down into the seat, elbows on knees, chin resting on his tangled fingers, and waits.

He stares fixedly at his laces. Nice boots, these.

Something cuts through the numbness, a horrible, resigned dread slowly rising inside him. Like staring down a tidal wave about to hit you, an erupting volcano. Well, what can you do? But that doesn't make it any easier.

(Because there's only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do.)

 _You suddenly hear a door open somewhere, and you panic, and you wildly wonder what the fastest way to kill yourself is. Oh God. If you collapse on the floor and start screaming your lungs out –and you really have been wanting to do that for some time now–_ ** _stop, stop, please_** _, maybe he'll let you be._

He screams himself hoarse inside his head instead, silently, bites down on a knuckle, until sheer exhaustion cancels out his agony, and he's quite calm again, if numb and hollow to the marrow of his bones.

A kind of scientific, philosophical detachment takes over him (really, he forces it on himself), and he thinks –though it's starting to get very difficult to do so– that yes, the Daleks have a point after all. "Divine hatred". His reaction is only natural since _he_ doesn't find it remotely beautiful.

Still. Why does he dread _his_ judgment the most?

 _Boots lighter than yours, the tread is almost silent now that he's not really there. But you still hear it. Childishly, you expect a fiery ghost, a hell-dark demon to match the planet below. But there he stands, across the room, just a pleasant young man with weird hair and a large chin, wearing his Shetland Tweed, eyes a moss-olive green._

Because it was _his_ clothes he found scattered around the TARDIS that first day. Because _this_ face is young, holding all the joy of the universe, but its eyes are old and sad, he decides, the cruel glee of having a foe at their mercy rare and utterly monstrous in them.

Because these eyes are kind, and almost always carrying genuine self-loathing; so when _they_ feel the right to stand accuser and not accused, the terrible, angry darkness in them reflects that you're the lowest of the low, the most wretched of horrors.

And that if he spares you –which he might– you do not deserve it.

(He's smiling and looking around, not at him. And he's quite grateful. Beware the green-eyed monster. It's not envy in this case.)

He pats a wall affectionally and walks forward with that deceptively youthful vigor. Suddenly he stops, spins around, and picks up from the floor a thin piece of cloth that wasn't there a moment ago, holding it up in the air in fascination. The colour is darker than the one that decorates his collar.

 _(It's the same bow tie you had discovered under the console, that first day, and which you'd picked up too, with a strange mixture of annoyance and reverence. It rests somewhere in the depths of the TARDIS in a cherry wood, silk-lined box, alongside a curl of frizzy blond hair, a short Roman dagger, and the final page of an old book, carefully folded under a pair of round glasses. For remembrance.)_

A bittersweet shadow quickly passes over the young face, he turns away, and puts it in his pocket after a great load of fiddling with an uncooperative inner button. Then he adjusts his own bow tie and collar, leans his back on the railing, and looks at the older man.

Oh, now he's the Predator; score one for the Daleks. The boundless energy hides inside. He moves slowly, and he stands still, and you cannot pinpoint exactly the moment the smile leaves his eyes and the arctic cold takes over.

"How's Clara?" he asks.

"She's fine".

"She's also not here". He takes out his screwdriver _(_ ** _the_** _screwdriver, your screwdriver, oh mercy)_ and scans him, green light, up and down. "That's new…"

"No", he says curtly.

"No?"

"We're not doing the whole…" he gestures with his hands, "'Grand Inquisitor Scene' thing you have in mind. There's no need. Go".

 _The last word is hoarse and almost pleading but you don't care. Because you know he won't._

"Oh! You've been visiting old Fyodor again, haven't you?" The cheerfulness in the other's voice almost makes him shudder. "Total stick in the mud, he wouldn't give me an autograph, 'too busy'…" He stands on his tiptoes and grabs a leather-bound book from the floor of the upper level _(really, Doctor, why do you leave them lying about),_ and flicks through it. "Not that bad, really. I mean, if _that_ was his problem, tell him I finally finished _Crime and Punishment_ ". He casually tosses the book in his general direction and he almost falls off his chair trying to catch it. "Which, when you think about it, is what _you_ should be reading", he adds.

 _Both of your hearts miss a beat and you put the book down, blindly, somewhere behind you. The temperature might have dropped about twenty degrees. The other is staring at you, ice in the lines of his face, his eyes, and you wonder how on earth you ever managed to fool anyone,_ ** _anyone_** _, even when you looked so young, impossibly young like that._

The sound of the Cloister Bell seems to die away somewhere in the distance.

"Is this why you lived?"

 _(Ice in his voice, the pitiless wrath that commanded genocide on the Silence, that wiped the Angels from existence, that forced entire armies to run, that smiled as creatures and men died screaming, as long as they had proved they were worse monsters, more guilty than he was. The voice of a man who has discovered something he can hate more than he does himself. And yet you've never heard such contempt in it.)_

He shrinks a little.

"For this!" the other shouts suddenly, opening his arms dramatically and then letting them fall back down by his sides. "For _this_ Gallifrey didn't burn. For _this_ there was hope", he continues quietly, viciously, bearing down on him. "For this the Doctor stayed, the Doctor waited, for this I accepted to die – _I,_ _died_ – on that planet. For this the rules were broken, and _you_ are sitting there, still breathing, right now".

He seems to deflate, walks away and stands by the console, shifting his jaw and looking down. "For _you_ , to go and do such a thing". His voice is now bitter, breaking. "I _promised_. Not one day. Did you forget? Yes, you can do anything now. Because we were forgiven." He faces him again, gesturing aimlessly with his hand. "Since it obviously wasn't enough… we probably shouldn't have been."

 _You look at his back as he braces himself against the console, tension radiating from him like heat. You close your eyes, wrack your rotting brain to find anything to say. He seems to read your thoughts, because he rounds on you, eyes blazing, face completely inhuman, the second you open your mouth._

"No. Don't you dare. Not to _me_. I. DON'T. _**CARE**_ WHO HE WAS!"

He raises an index finger. "Is that clear?"

 _("In bed above, we're deep asleep, while greater love lies further deep…")_

He backs away, breathing heavily, and the sonic screwdriver is in his hand again, the one he once used to save 2.47 billion children. Because he couldn't just stand there. He never could.

He throws it to spin in the air once, twice, seems to consider it, calms himself down.

 _Then he throws it at you –you almost hope it will pass through you like the ghost that he is– but your hand rises instinctively to catch or deflect and you snatch it easily. You stare at it, you can't stop looking, you feel sweat running down your face and your breath quickening through your gritted teeth. It burns your palm and drags your shaking arm to the floor._

"Here. To help you remember in the future. If there is one, that is". He smiles, a mockery of a smile, and turns to leave.

 _You throw the sonic away and you jump to your feet, furious despair giving you the strength to stand, to run, to catch up with him. You grab his forearm in a vice-like grip and turn him violently around to face you, to ask what none of them gave you the chance to utter. But for a few seconds you just glare at him and he looks serenely back._

"What would you have me do?"

It bursts out of him, finally, hopeless anger and pain making his voice a growl.

(He looks down at your restraining hand with an expression of amused surprise, easily pries the fingers off him, and straightens his sleeve. He is silent for a moment, then tilts his head back slightly and looks seriously, thoughtfully at you beneath his pale, nonexistent eyebrows.)

"I'd have you not be cruel… I'd have you not be cowardly", he seems to suppress a sigh or a bitter laugh, "I'd have you be the Doctor".

 _He vanishes like a spectre and your reaching hand touches nothing. Slowly, you bring it to your chest, your hammering hearts, the writhing black holes that fill your insides, that are your organs. The words echo, hang heavy, indescribably heavy in the air._

He tries to take a step forward and he drops to the floor as if struck by a thunderbolt.

.


	8. Coda

**Continuing quote from** _ **Manfred.**_

* * *

 _OoO_

* * *

 _ **And on thy head I pour the vial**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Which doth devote thee to this trial;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Nor to slumber, nor to die,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Shall be in thy destiny;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Though thy death shall still seem near**_ _ **  
**_ _ **To thy wish, but as a fear;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Lo! the spell now works around thee,**_ _ **  
**_ _ **And the clankless chain hath bound thee;**_ _ **  
**_ _ **O'er thy heart and brain together**_ _ **  
**_ _ **Hath the word been pass'd - now wither!**_

 _._

Seconds, minutes, or hours pass before he finally rises out of oblivion. His sense of time is utterly destroyed, he can't tell. He is just suddenly conscious, shivering on the hard surface like he's lying on ice.

Slowly, he gets up and looks around warily at the emptiness, expecting a sound, a movement, _something_ to lash out at him from the shadows, out of nowhere.

An eternity seems to pass and nothing does. And he finally allows himself to collapse against a computer panel, pressing his feverish, pounding forehead on the blessedly cool metal.

Deep breath.

 _("Is something funny? Did I miss a funny thing?"_ _  
_ _"Sorry. It just occurred to me. This is what I'm like when I'm alone.")_

He rises, walks briskly to the console, and sets the coordinates for planet Karn.

.

"Do not go gentle into that good night." A small voice in the back of his head insists that he's only doing this to deliberately go against stuffy Time Lord traditions, not because he's easily bored and distracted. And that he also has very good reasons to be unable to think quietly or concentrate, no ADD nonsense. He ignores it.

Another chides him for being too much of a coward to say several goodbyes. That one is more difficult to ignore.

(But nobody can hide from a friend. Might as well; he's gotten quite good with the guitar. When do I not see you?)

"Now, you lot. I have been here all day, and it's been a great day!"  
"You've been here for three weeks."  
Impossible. Not even he could – _really?_ For so long? How is he even able to think, to talk, to stand?

"Three weeks? It must be nearly bedtime."

(Hugging is indeed a great way to hide your face and he really needs to at the moment.)

.

Davros knows. Davros remembers.

"I don't have a screwdriver any more."

.

 _("When?"_ _  
_ _Clara's expression is one of amused curiosity. He locks away the quite recent bad memories that spring up, and blinks, his face impassive._ _  
_ _"Well, when you're not looking.")_

 _._

He knows he must look like death. How fitting.

The life support tubes rise up and oh, of course that's what he looks like now. The image of the screaming ten-year-old hovers persistently behind his eyelids.

"You came, then."  
"Clearly."  
"Did you suspect a trap?" _  
_ _You may kill me, but you may never insult my intelligence._ "I still do."  
"Then why are you here?"

"Did you miss our conversations?" He throws a switch and there they are on a small wall screen, his past selves one after the other, drowning them in their overlapping cacophony.

And he would laugh if he could breathe, as he wanders around the room listening to their voices, because what's the point in all of this? Such a poor imitation of the foul wasteland in his head, of the chaos and horror of his nightmares.

Davros goes on about his sense of duty, his guilt and his shame. And he gets distracted because he has to speak, and he pushes the crippling exhaustion down, and never gets the chance to answer him.

 _Then why are you here?_

 _So that I could sleep, Davros. So that I could sleep._

.

.

-the end-

* * *

 **Thank you for reading! Reviews are, as always, tremendously appreciated!**


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